„The Change Is Me“ – DOODSESKADER could hardly have chosen a more fitting album title. In fact, Belgian musicians Tim De Gieter and Sigfried Burroughs scrapped the album they had already finished and wrote a completely new one. In this interview, Tim De Gieter explains how that came about, what it feels like to take such a drastic step, and how the music and album concept evolved throughout the process.
When did you realized that the album you’d written and recorded wasn’t the one you wanted to release?
The first time I listened to the master to be honest. It took me one listen and I immediately knew this wasn’t going to be the way to go for us as it would lead us down a path where we’d not be able to lift ourselves up as people, but would push us further in the mud of feelings we were already stuck in for a while now.
How do you talk about something like that in a creative project?
Talking about it was fairly easy, we’re friends who share almost everything with each other and life has thrown a lot of shit our way that was harder to deal with than scrapping a record and making a new one.
How did you approach the new album musically? Did you really start completely from scratch? Did you consciously move away from the discarded album, or build on it? >
Yeah we started from scratch. I don’t believe in recycling music – there’s already too much of that going on with bands just putting out the same songs for years and years just with different titles and on different albums. We wanted to hit the studio with a blank canvas and see where it took us, as the result of that would be the most honest sonic depiction of who we were at that point in time. I decided as some kind of „preparation“ to make snippets of like 10 seconds of just „sounds“, textures that I felt represented how I felt. I made one or two every night, sending them to Sigfried, and asked him to not send me anything back. This way he could just be creatively free and we could have some sort of „meeting of the minds“ with an equal and open playing field when we’d start recording real songs.
Is the other album really “scrapped,” or just postponed, with „The Change Is Me“ inserted in between?
Scrapped.
The fact that you’ve evolved is one thing – especially when it comes to the lyrics, I can definitely see that. But don’t you feel bad about the songs – is there nothing at all you would have liked to showcase? How did the scrapped album sound in comparison?
In all honesty the one we scrapped was very dark and bleak. Musically it was heavier than what we put out now, and lyrically to me it just felt completely hopeless. I wrote my parts over a period of one year where I got sucked into a very heavy depression, I kind of lost myself completely, and life and living stopped making sense. The last song on that record is one that I’ll forever be grateful to have written but also the one that I listened to and thought „this has gone far enough“. This life might be an absolute pile of shit and some people might be my last possible choice to share a planet with but I can’t tell other people that the answer is to give up completely and then repeat it night after night. So yeah, I don’t feel bad at all that it got scrapped – I just projected whatever shred of hope I had left into this new record and doing that was the best possible choice as now I feel like I get to go on a journey where I can re-discover myself and attempt to find a place in this world, and night after night try to convince others that they can too.
In which way did you change your approach on writing the lyrics or picking the themes for the lyrics? The press release says that this project is meant to document you and the state of humanity. I hope things are going better for you as individuals than they are for humanity?
I don’t really approach anything or choose the subject matter – I can only make what comes out of me. Every record so far has documented either how I grew up and got here („Year Zero“) or who I am now and what I’m dealing with („Year One“, „Year Two“ and „The Change Is Me“). I’m attempting to have both the sonics and lyrics be a mirror to my soul, so I have a chance at being seen and heard in a world where communication with each other is increasingly difficult.
On a personal level I’m doing okay, it’s a taking things day to day type thing currently, which doesn’t mean I’m in this non stop state of sadness or whatever. This life is just extremely disappointing, people in power are extremely disgusting and the masses just want to close their eyes and look away, which is absolutely maddening. I’m trying to stay sane in a world that is the exact opposite.
The press release als states, on the one hand, that the album is supposed to mark the “beginning of a more positive era,” but also that “two friends are joining forces in the fight against an increasingly disappointing world.” That doesn’t sound very positive, does it?
Of course it does. I didn’t choose this fucked up world, I don’t want other people to not be free, I don’t choose to witness genocide, I didn’t wish a website into existence where millions of „men“ look for info on how to drug and rape women. I never chose this life, this body, the chemical imbalance in my brain, the way I grew up, but this is the reality I have to deal with and if this is it I will use every ounce of energy I have to fight for something else.
Because I chose this „band“, I chose Sigfried, I chose all the people that we work with, I chose to say shit as it is, not some sugarcoated pop rock bullshit „it’ll be okay“-type beat, just real shit.
Negative would be „we’re fucked“, unrealistic would be „we’re fine“, our version of positivity is „we’re fucked but we’re gonna go out swinging“.
It’s striking that the new album has even more rap/electro influences than your previous works – now that you’d just started gaining fans in the metal scene after touring with ALCEST, that might confuse some people. Is that something you think about?
No. It’d be absolutely sickening to make our music a certain way so we can either retain or increase the number of people that like what we do. It’s not about building a fandom, following the music industry business model that requires you to keep shitting out the same genre so they can keep selling it and put it in playlists with stuff that sounds exactly the same, just played by different people.
What we do is what we feel, and you might feel like you don’t like what we do, or that you only liked our first, last or second album. It doesn’t matter. You’re entirely correct and entitled to that opinion. Our music doesn’t exist to please you – it exists because we needed to make it.
The press release mentions that you produced the album together in one room – what did that do for you?
It was the absolute best to be honest! We spent a lot of time on the road the past couple of years, which was a bit more intense than we had planned. I think both of us really missed the freedom of just hanging out, playing together and just making things without a clue of where it’d be headed.
If anything, it’s been one of the best decisions we’ve ever made, and we’ll be doing more of it in the near future.
It also says that it evolved within a timespan of only one week. Did you really make the entire album from start to finish in one week?
Everything but the mix and a small part of the vocals that had to be re-recorded. It’s funny because a lot of the stuff was done in such a hectic way that most of the time we didn’t even know we were doing (final) takes. „Suffering In Technicolor“ was the first time we tried it, a lot of the vocals were actually very shitty tracks that were distorting all over the place, either sitting on the floor or when I was curled in a ball in the studio chair.
The process was documented in the film „Now I Know You See Me.“ Why was that important to you?
It just felt like one of those things where we knew something was going to go incredibly right and we’d have a record both of us love – or it was gonna go horribly wrong and we’d have to explain why no music was going to come out. In both cases having the process documented just seemed the right call.
Did knowing about the documentary help, or did it sometimes hold you back – or did you completely block it out?
I think for the most part we blocked it out completely, I remember there was only one moment where I specifically asked to stop filming because I wanted to dig a bit deeper into myself and needed some alone time to be able to do so. The biggest advantage for us is that it was shot by Diana Lungu, who has also made all of our videos, all of our designs and is managing this band. So the three of us are actually constantly together, and she’s the best to have around. If anything it just added to the experience.
The cover is unusual, and also a bit unsettling. Why does the image fit the music perfectly, and what’s the idea behind it?
Yeah I fully agree. It was made by Maarten Colman, I found his art a couple of years ago and it was one of the few things that moved me in such an immediate and intense way. I feel like when people talk about what they find in our music, that’s how I felt about his work. I’ll just quote from the man himself about the idea behind it, as I truly wish to do his work and ideas justice: „What has always touched me deeply about DOODSESKADER – and certainly with this album – is how their music reflects their mental state. This is clear from the very first line of the first song: “I’ve been swimming in a sea of disappointment”. They struggle with the world, themselves, and others. These are themes I also draw inspiration from; for me, it is a process of catharsis. Everyone carries monsters with them, whether from the past or the present. In my experience, these manifest most strongly in our homes; these creatures emerge when we are away from the public eye. We encounter them in others, see them appearing from within ourselves, and either long for them or try to escape them. With the album art, I hope to evoke various reactions and questions rooted in the viewer’s own personal experiences and monsters. On one side sits an overturned chair, and on the other, a giant spider with a face that looks piercing yet friendly. Between them is a table with two glasses and a bowl. Did the second person escape through the space behind the chair? (Hope) Was the person attacked? (Despair) Was there never a second person at all? (Lost) „
Your first tour was, as mentioned, with ALCEST. How do you look back on that tour – did it work out musically?
I look back on that tour as one of my favorite tours of my entire life. On a human level the combination was beyond excellent, I truly love every single one of them (and every single person on that crew!) SO much, I still often find myself reminiscing on those days and missing them a lot. Musically I absolutely loved the combination as well; ALCEST to me musically represents this dream-like, beautiful world that lies beyond our own, and we bring the grit and dirt of real life. There’s nothing better than to have something soothing after that, and what soothes better than ALCEST?
Now, you’re going on tour with HEALTH later this year. How did this pairing come about, and why do you think it’s a great fit?
We’ve known and loved HEALTH for a long time now as a band. Our booker let us know they’d be down for us to open for them and when we got the offer we were absolutely ecstatic. We’re really lucky that every single band we’ve toured with (ALCEST, COILGUNS and now HEALTH) are bands that we actually really wanted to tour with and feel like great fits with what we do. Big shout out to all of them for taking a chance on us and our weirdness.
Let’s finish with a short brainstorming – what comes to your mind first, reading the following terms:
drugs: If they’re green I’ll smoke all of them
your favorite album at the moment: PREWN – „System“
climate change: Part of the current day horrors
RECORD STORE DAY: The very definition of „I want to like it, but…“
spotify: I spoke too soon with the last question I guess
DOODSESKADER in 10 years: probably the worlds worst reggae band
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14. Mai 2026 Moritz Grütz
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